2015考研英语阅读集中练世界最大蓝钻石

　　世界最大蓝钻石

　　Petra Diamonds announced its discovery of what may very well be the largest blue diamond to ever be unearthed at the Cullinan mine in South Africa.

　　佩特拉钻石公司近日宣布，他们在南非库利南钻石矿发现了一颗很有可能是迄今为止最大的蓝钻石。

　　It is the size of a strawberry and weighs a bit less than three pound coins.

　　它和一颗草莓差不多大，比3枚一英镑硬币略轻。

　　But if you had this rare blue beauty in your pocket you would be carrying around a diamond that could be worth more than ￡60million.

　　要是你能将这颗蓝色尤物装进自己的口袋，那你等于随身带了一颗价值超过6千万英镑的钻石。

　　Anyone who buys it, however, will be hoping for better luck than the owners of the famous deep blue Hope Diamond. It supposedly puts a curse on those who possess it, as the guillotined Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette discovered.

　　这颗钻石的买家得祈祷自己拥有比著名的希望蓝钻的拥有者更好的运气。希望蓝钻被认为会为拥有者带来厄运，比如被送上断头台的路易十六夫妇。

　　Blue diamonds get their colour from small amounts of the chemical element boron trapped in their crystal structure. The more blue it is, the greater the value. They are the rarest diamonds after red, which are almost never found.

　　蓝钻石的晶体结构中含有的化学元素硼是蓝色的由来。蓝色越深，钻石的价值越高。蓝钻石是第二稀有的钻石，仅次于极难被发现的红钻石。

　　The Cullinan mine is recognised as the most important diamond mine in the world. It is famous for producing the worlds largest white diamond, the 3,106-carat Cullinan Diamond, which was found in 1905.

　　库利南钻石矿被认为是世界上最重要的钻石矿。它因1905年发现的世界最大的白钻石3106克拉的库利南钻石而声名远播。